Crystalline Alignment
by qwanderer
Summary: Loki is brought back to face up to what he did on Earth. Tony and Bruce take the opportunity to learn about magic, technology, and alien biochemistry. But Tony learns more than he bargained for. Just barely T for mild swearing and smooches. Be aware: FrostIron slash, blue!Loki, technobabble. Continued in Better Mischief Through Science.
1. Avengers

**Chapter 1: Avengers**

"Set to turn it on?"

"Yep, here goes."

"Huh."

"Well that can't be right."

* * *

Stark Tower.

Tasha and Clint were at the table playing cards and drinking tea. Steve and Thor were playing Boom Blox. They were both finally getting the hang of the Wii system. Even though the TV was covered in bulletproof glass, Thor had had the wrist strap rule strictly imposed on him since the incident that had damaged the first TV. There were still breakable things around the place, like Tony's head.

Tony ran upstairs from his workshop, looking manic. "Guys, guys! Bruce and I made a magical artifact detector, and it says I'm magic and he isn't. I dunno what's going on but I need more test subjects!"

Nobody really responded, so he waved the scanner over Clint and Natasha as they sat looking at their hands of cards. Bruce came up the stairs at a more reasonable pace, and looked over Tony's shoulder at the new readings.

"Congratulations, guys!" Tony beamed at them.

The two assassins finally looked up at the only-slightly-mad scientist.

"You're both completely unexceptional!"

They looked back down at their cards again.

"I need some superhuman test subjects." Tony gestured to Steve and Thor. "Hey Joe Palooka!" he called. "Come over here, and bring Humphrey!"

Steve made a strangled noise, and everyone else looked at him in concern, to see that he was hunched over on the couch and his face was red with helpless laughter.

Thor, Tasha and Bruce looked bewildered. Clint said, "I think you broke him."

"That's no good. I need a healthy lab rat. Hey, Palooka, remember to breathe."

After Steve got his breath back, he dragged Thor over to join the others at the table, and while Tony scanned them both, Steve explained that Joe Palooka was an all-American Nazi-punching boxer, and Humphrey was his sparring buddy who carried a big heavy hammer.

"I didn't know anybody still remembered those comics," the Captain said, still chuckling.

"Oh, nobody does," Stark replied. "I just got tired of watching my jokes fly over your head, so I dug up some ancient papyrus-based humor." He examined Steve's readings. "You are also...completely mundane, according to the new machine. I'm not even sure what this measures."

"It _should_ react only to the crystalline structure of the Tesseract and related artifacts. Selvig has been helping me with the theory," Bruce said. "Maybe it was picking up on the test weapon when we scanned you, Tony."

"Uh, nope. We've got another live one. Thor, do you by any chance have a crystalline structure?"

"I...don't believe so," said the god. "What is it? Some kind of weapon?"

"No, but that's a good idea. Where is the ol' Mjolnir?"

* * *

"So whaddya think?" Tony asked Bruce, bored of staring while the other scientist sat and looked at the data in consternation.

"There are variations in all of the readings, and the test weapon we 'borrowed' from Shield is the most similar to what we expected. But the two readings that are the most similar are you...and Mjolnir."

"Well, there goes the idea of secretly being a god," Tony said.

"Secretly? We all know you have a god complex."

"Yeah, yeah. So there goes the idea of being secretly Asgardian. Still a god."

Bruce opted to let go the fact that the traditional singular noun for one of Thor's race was actually "áss." He also decided not to refer to Tony as "Captain Hammer." Really, Bruce was far too nice.

Tony looked over the numbers from the more closely analyzed readings. "It has to be the arc reactor."

"Theoretically that might just make sense." Bruce's nose drifted back down to the data. "But does that mean you invented 'magic' independently of the Asgardians?"

"Nope. Remember, my dad was the one who found the Tesseract, and he drew up the initial design for the large scale reactor. Guess he did end up learning something a bit useful from it."


	2. Tony

**Chapter 2: Tony**

Pepper had broken up with him.

Tony _thought_ things had been going well. Actually he hadn't thought much about it. He'd been so busy. There were always a gajillion things going on in his head. Since he'd learned about vibranium, there was always a part of his brain trying to figure out new things to use it for. The last couple of days he had been caught up in the magic detector. And of course there was the suit.

The whole relationship thing wasn't something that he did. Tony Stark didn't fall head over heels in love and spend all day thinking about someone's face. How could anyone think about one thing for so long at a stretch? He cared about Pepper. But he wasn't obsessed, the way he was with the suit, or Jarvis's programming. Maybe Tony Stark just didn't do love.

Because he hadn't thought about her except when they were in bed, or she called to make sure he was eating, or she bullied him into signing something. That was probably symptomatic of something, now that his attention had been called to it.

What was more symptomatic was that after that talk, he did the same thing. He buried himself in his workshop, tweaking designs, testing, taking readings. The rest of the world didn't matter, Tony Stark was working. When Steve came down to say he had heard, was Tony all right, did he want to talk about it? Tony had been momentarily unable to think of what he was talking about.

"Oh, yeah, the Pepper thing," he said a second later.

"Yes, that," Steve said, looking even more concerned. "So how are you, about that?"

Tony shrugged. "I've been working. I'm not drunk. That's good, right?"

"I hate to say it, but it worries me that you're _not_ dead drunk. I know you cared about her, and I know how you usually deal with things. I just want to know what's going on in your head, because from here it looks kind of like it hasn't hit you yet."

Tony made a serious effort to be serious. "It worries me too. The Tin Man may have gotten himself a ticker, but in the end maybe it's just another piece of metal." He tapped his reactor, making a _tink tink_ noise.

Steve replied with a sad half-smile, and said, "Of course you have a heart. There's proof right there, more old rusty references just for me."

"Actually that was completely accidental. Between Pink Floyd synchs and Wicked the musical, most people still remember that movie."

"Okay, I'm totally lost again."

Tony sat down, drumming a tiny screwdriver against the fingers of his left hand. "Maybe she was right. It was too obvious. Too safe. There was never enough to lose." He frowned in contemplation. "I thought I could use something safe for a change. But she's right. That's not me."

There was a silence.

"You want a drink, Cap? Because I think I'm just about ready to start drinking myself into that stupor."

Steve sighed. "There's the idiot I know and love."


	3. Loki

**Chapter 3: Loki**

Thor and Loki were of a size, growing up.

Immortals did not generally keep track of such common things as birthdays, and the princes were rarely aware of their own ages. It was not the sort of thing that would concern Thor - and anyway Odin always referred to the blond boy as his firstborn - but when Loki began to learn of such things, it seemed to him that the princes must have been twins.

He used to think, perhaps, everything that had felt so wrong about his life would have been put right if he could have avoided that first so-long-ago misstep, being born second.

That was the first time he began to truly hate himself. Everything he did ended up wrong, starting with being born.

Loki paced in his cell.

The humans had sent him back to Asgard to face punishment for his involvement in the Chitauri incident. At least that's how they saw it. But Odin was much more interested in yelling at Loki for almost killing Thor and Heimdall, for nearly killing off the Frost Giants - the things Odin saw as betrayals.

Betrayals!

Odin taught us about war, bravery, glory and victory, and then when we pursue those things he knocks us down! Says we don't understand! He should have taught us better, then!

Betrayals!

They called Loki the God of Lies. Well perhaps that's what happens when you've always been lied to! His very skin was a lie! He had been taught to be Asgardian, to hate the Frost Giants. To hate the very thing he was!

Betrayals. Hah. His whole life was a nest of them. Loyalty becomes meaningless when the very people who pretend to teach you of it break their faith with you.

Loki knew now that whatever he did, he would fail to find a rightful place, fail to do what was expected of him. There was no point in trying. That had led him to failure after failure.

This realization would have plunged him into blackest despair, except that he remembered something the Man of Iron had told him, when the human offered Loki a drink after the battle.

"There is no such thing as good enough."

Even the hero felt that way. The hero who had survived being eaten by a Chitauri Leviathan, being thrown out of a skyscraper, and escorting some kind of very powerful human weapon through the portal. The hero who was as legendary on Midgard as Thor was on Asgard.

Odin had punished Loki in many ways for his mischief in the past. The Æsir seemed to care very little about receiving or inflicting pain. It was a warrior's life. But Loki did not endure it well. So when Odin had decided to take Loki's magic and banish him to Midgard, Loki was relieved.

Loki hadn't realized then how much being separated from his magic would hurt.

Thor hadn't shown any sign that he had experienced pain like this. Perhaps somehow Thor's magic was less part of him, because he so rarely used it. Or maybe...this was another failure on Loki's part. He never could endure pain the way the other...the Æsir did.

By the time he arrived on Earth it was only a sort of hollow ache. The humans of SHIELD treated him well enough, for a prisoner, so he did not fear more pain. The thing that tortured him now was that humans were all around him, staring at him like a cat watches its prey.

And he was helpless, and he was _blue._


	4. The Three Magics

**Chapter 4: The Three Magics**

Loki sat on his bunk with his back to the wall, looking at the hideous clothing he had been made to wear and sulking. Not that he would have liked his appearance, even with his favorite clothes. He was still blue. With the terrible red eyes that had haunted his childhood nightmares.

Then he heard footsteps approaching. No doubt he was to be questioned or prodded again by some human warrior or scientist. He sighed.

Strange, but when the two men approached carrying some unknown electronic equipment, Loki felt his mood lift. Strange because one of them had once thrown him about like a ragdoll, and the other had dealt the fatal blow to his army. But they had all three of them worn very different faces then.

"Hey, Blue Man." Stark smirked at him. "It's been a while. Something's changed. Don't tell me, is it your hair?"

"Must you mock me?" Loki replied disdainfully. "Do you have nothing better to do with your time?"

"I'm here to do science," Tony said as he set up his laptop. "Being able to mock you at the same time is just a bonus."

"You should actually feel honored," Dr. Banner said, adjusting knobs on the machine in his hand. "Tony mocks everybody he likes."

Tony didn't look up from the laptop as he spoke. "Just ignore the not-so-jolly green giant over there. He's under a misapprehension. The fact is that I don't like anybody." Then as he finished typing, he raised his eyebrows at Loki. "Ready to be a lab rat?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really," said Tony. "But don't worry, it'll be quick and painless."

"This whole conversation is already neither of those, Tony Stark," said Loki, which was a total lie. The blue-skinned man was relishing the company of humans with some actual intelligence.

Bruce finished the scan. "Huh."

Tony looked at the laptop, where the readings were being processed and compared with the others. "Yeah, that's interesting."

"From this I can't tell if he's reading faintly or if it's just picking up your arc reactor in the background. Shouldn't he have the same basic properties as Thor?"

"I am not one of the Æsir," said Loki, glaring at Dr. Banner with bright red eyes. "What exactly are you measuring?"

"Magic, I think," said Tony. "No, it's not background. The software's compensated and he's still reading like Thor, but much more faintly."

"So my magic is not completely gone," Loki mused. "Unfortunately it is totally inadequate to actually _do_ anything with." Loki's eyes closed and his chin fell in resignation. "I will go mad in this box with nothing to amuse myself."

"Thought you already were kind of cuckoo, Blue Man." Tony raised his eyebrows at Loki again. "So how did you lose your mojo?"

"It was ripped from me by the man I once called my father. It was...extraordinarily painful." Loki took a breath. "But I do not wish to speak of that. I gather you have begun to study the extradimensional forces?"

"Just barely," Dr. Banner said. "We're not even sure what we're seeing. I get the part where the crystals in the Tesseract and the Bifrost extend into another dimension to form Einstein Rosen bridges. But I don't understand why the arc reactors and the bodies of magic users also seem to extend that way."

"And don't forget Mjolnir," Tony added. "I'm especially interested in that since it seems to act a lot like an arc reactor under these scanners. I know how to make an arc reactor but I've never quite got the concept of _why_ they actually work. Honestly I only built the first one to see if I could prove my Dad wrong about something." Stark grinned. "And that backfired severely."

"Fortunately for the rest of the planet," Bruce chuckled.

"Did you just imply that I am indispensable?" Tony gaped. "I think he did."

"Anyway," Bruce said, "Do you know if we're on the right track?" He looked to Loki.

"The metal from which Mjolnir is forged does extend into the same dimension as the Bifrost." Loki wanted this conversation to continue. This was the least bored he had been since he had had his magic taken, and maybe for a while before that. So the God of Lies spoke freely. "It collects energy from an energy-rich parallel plane and converts it to electricity. It may very well be the same principle on which the arc reactors operate."

"Aha!" Tony said. "I knew they had no basis for working in known spacetime!"

"And some part of the structure of your body also collects energy from that plane?" Bruce asked.

"It used to," Loki hissed.

"And then what? How do you magic?" Tony asked, ignoring the god's discomfort.

Explaining the use of biological interdimensional energy to someone who had never experienced it proved nearly impossible. But they talked for hours, trying to gain some understanding. And in fact it proved to distract Loki from his predicament remarkably well.

When they had left, Loki sat on his bunk, pondering his clothes again. If possible, they looked even more drab than they had this morning.


	5. Warrior

**Chapter 5: Warrior**

Tony had come back to ask more questions about the magic, and the energy-rich parallel plane the Asgardians called Yggdrasil. But they'd ended up talking about Asgardian culture instead. Or rather Loki talked, and Tony, sitting on the other end of the bunk, didn't interrupt.

"On Asgard, pain and death are the lot of a warrior. It seems odd to me how here on Earth, every life, every blow, every limb and eye are agonized over, even those of your warriors. It is a jarring difference from what I am accustomed to.

"The Chitauri were planning an attack on Midgard already. They would have found a way, and I was the only one who knew. I only wanted to escape them. The way they hurt and kill casually is worse than the Æsir." Loki flinched. "The Chitauri were watching me, but I tried to be sure your warriors would gather in time to meet them. The men I caused Barton to shoot, and the men I killed, were all combatants. A man of the Æsir desires nothing more than clean death in battle."

Loki looked sideways at Tony, and then quickly away again. "If I had realized how ill you would take it, I would have found another way. I would not have killed your Agent Coulson. I...am sorry for that.

"All my life I've been trying to be a good warrior of Asgard, and all my life I've failed." Loki put his blue hands out in front of him, and looked at them in distaste. "It's become apparent that it is time for me to try being something else."

Tony had been silent for an unaccustomedly long time, and he couldn't stand it much longer. He needed some time to mull over the whole "apologizing for killing people" thing, so he picked another subject.

"You really don't like the blue, huh?"

"This is the skin of a monster who kills and devours Æsir children. I despise it."

"Well, it doesn't look half bad. I don't have the facial structure to pull off that color, but on you it's actually quite elegant."

Loki's face went from haunted, through mild confusion, up to the edge of pleased, and then back in the direction of a resigned disappointment. "These clothes look terrible with it, though," he said.

"I'm forced to agree," said Tony. "Olive drab is not your color these days. Tell you what, I'll get some other clothes sent over for you. As a thank you for explaining all that stuff about magic."

"I would be grateful." The frost giant looked up at Tony as the human stood to leave. "And if you have any more questions, well, I, at least, have nothing better to do than be pestered by Tony Stark." He held out his arms to indicate the empty cell around them.

"I'll keep that in mind," said Tony, with a small smile.

* * *

As soon as he was in the elevator, Tony said, "Jarvis? Do we have access to the video feeds in that cell?"

"Not officially, sir, since although you own the building, that section is under the purview of SHIELD. Would you like me to break in?"

As the elevator rose to the top of the tower where the Avengers were usually to be found, when they weren't helping rebuild the city, he gave Jarvis more instructions. He needed to know what the others thought of Loki's newest story. Because although the excuse seemed ludicrous on the surface, Tony was halfway convinced. All the pain on the angular blue face seemed real enough to him.

Tony hoped Thor was around. He really hated relying on instincts when facts might be available.

Jarvis had told everyone who was hanging around that Tony was coming and had something he wanted help with. So when the elevator door opened, Natasha, Clint, Thor, and Steve were there, looking at him expectantly.

"Hey, what's up?" said Tasha.

"You guys have got to see this," he said, and Jarvis brought up the footage of his latest conversation with Loki on the big screen TV. Bruce came up from the workshop in time to hear most of it.

Tony watched the faces of his fellow Avengers. _"I...am sorry for that,"_ said the blue face on the screen. Steve's jaw dropped. Tasha's forehead wrinkled. Thor merely continued to frown in sad sympathy for his adopted brother.

"I think he means it," said Tasha incredulously.

"Oh good, I'm not crazy. Or at least I'm not the only one," said Tony. "Thor, is it true that you guys laugh in the face of death over on your planet?"

"Do you remember when we first met?" Thor asked, looking at Stark and the Captain. "I would have killed you both to get to my brother. My hammer had never yet failed me, and I fully intended to crush you into the dust. Your armor and your shield, the likes of which I had never seen, were all that saved you. No, a warrior of Asgard does not hesitate to send another man to Valhalla if he sees a need.

"My father Odin has changed, since we were children. We were raised on the traditional stories, and many of them end with honorable death in battle. It is a happy ending." The god frowned. "Loki was never quite content with that, and he and Father often argued over the _why_ of the warrior's path. Those arguments changed both of them. Loki became angry and defiant, and Odin came to hate any unnecessary war. I did not realize how much they had both changed until that day when I was to become king of Asgard. But Loki goaded me into battle, and my father banished me for it."

"We shouldn't be holding him," Steve said after a thoughtful silence. "Not only is he barely a threat without his magic. If the rest of what he said was true, we might be a lot worse off right now without him. I looked at the numbers after the rubble was cleared. Yes, we lost a lot of people at the SHIELD base and on the helicarrier. But civilians? Only a handful. For an alien invasion I'd say that's pretty good."

Clint shook his head. "What about those security guards I shot in Germany? They weren't military."

"Were they carrying?" Natasha asked.

"Of course."

"Then forgive me for saying this, but an armed combatant is an armed combatant." She put a hand on his arm. "Please, stop wearing yourself out over this. It's in the past."

Clint stood up and left the room, his eyes shadowed. Tasha followed.

Tony, Cap, Thor and Bruce looked at each other.

"I have another question," said Banner, turning to Thor. "Is it true that when your magic is taken, it hurts like hell?"

"I have never faced Hel in battle. She is actually very sweet to her uncle Thor." The quirk of his mouth gave that away as a joke. "But I know the expression." He thought. "I suppose it did hurt a great deal. More than being tasered or hit by a car. But I was distracted at that moment and did not take note of it."

"Ouch," said Bruce. "You do handle pain differently. I wonder if it's a biological difference in the Asgardians, even something Loki doesn't have? It might go a long way to explaining why he's insane."

Steve shook his head. "Well, I'm going to have a talk with Fury. I'm starting to sympathize with his prisoner. And really, without magic, what can he do?"

"I will come as well," said Thor. "My testimony may be helpful. Also I wish to visit my brother."

So the two blond warriors took the elevator down to the SHIELD offices, and the two brown-haired scientists stood in the large empty room, contemplating.

"I've been working on something," Bruce said finally, "ever since we did those scans of Loki. I didn't think I'd ever have a reason to use it, but it seems like things are changing. I'd appreciate it if you took a look."


	6. Enhanced Biology

**Chapter 6: Enhanced Biology**

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like you're trying to figure out how to turn Loki into an arc reactor."

"Well, to return his magic to him. But yes, that's essentially the idea."

Tony and Bruce stood in the lab, looking over Bruce's notes and designs. There were the scans of Thor, along with bloodwork and any other information they could get on his biology. They had the scans of Loki, too, but not so much of the other information.

"If we're going to figure out a way to do this without killing him, we need more information on his biology. I'm hesitant to ask Fury for permission to run the tests. He'll want to know why."

"Well that's no problem," Tony snorted. "I'm sure SHIELD has already done all that for us anyway. I'll just hack them again for you."

A minute later there was much more data on their screens.

"Eesh! He's basically made of ANFO." Tony blinked. "Note to self: Don't fire shells at frost giants from close range."

"That is...nothing like Thor."

"Yeah, well, blue ice-forming god of fire. Probably enough interesting chemistry there it'll take three days running just to figure out the basics. Jarvis, make all the coffee."

"I will start a pot, sir."

"Y'know, Tony, some people enjoy this thing called sleep..."

* * *

The next time Tony went down to the cell to have a chat with Loki, he stopped in the doorway and completely forgot what he was going to say.

The god of mischief was wearing black slacks and a deep red button down shirt, just a shade darker than his eyes. Loki was reading a book, but as he looked up and saw Tony, the warmth in his red eyes was almost shocking.

Tony had always liked red.

Tony didn't know how long he'd been standing there staring at the color of Loki's eyes, but eventually his brain kicked back on and he looked away. _What was that?_

"Hey, so, I thought of some new questions for you." He sat on his usual end of the bunk.

They talked over the finer points of how Mjolnir was forged, what made it so sturdy and how that knowledge could be applied to improving the arc reactors. Loki was learning technical dialect very quickly, and only a few times did he have to stop Tony and ask him what a word meant.

"You do realize you're giving me a staggering amount of information about that little device in your chest that's keeping you alive?" Loki taunted him. "If I had my magic I could kill it with one little word. Kill you with a word."

"Well, Cookie Monster, you don't have your magic. So I guess that's never going to happen."

"You are a fascinating creature, Tony Stark. You wear such thick armor, and then leave your heart right out in the open regardless. You hide everything about yourself except that which is most important."

Tony sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Oh, haven't you read the papers? Tony Stark doesn't have a heart."

"Going to let a little insult like that get to you?" said Loki disdainfully.

"They also said I drink so much it's a wonder I still have a brain."

"Heimdall once told everyone I was 'a witless drunk who could not hold his tongue.'"

"Unbalanced and reckless."

"Insane and perverse."

"Degenerate womanizer."

"Capricious."

"Arrogant."

"Malicious."

"Merchant of Death."

"Father of Lies."

"Apparently I break women's hearts."

"Apparently I eat them."

Tony looked over at Loki with widened eyes. The god was grinning deviously from ear to ear.

"Yeah, okay. You win."

They both began to laugh helplessly, a not entirely happy sound, but it was an enormous relief. When Tony finally left, they were both in better moods than they had been in a long while.

Later it occurred to Tony that for however long he had been standing in that doorway, Loki hadn't looked away either.


	7. indifference

**Chapter 7: Indifference**

Tony approached Loki's cell, carrying a modified reactor and a half dozen more questions, and more enthusiasm than he wanted to admit to himself.

Then he heard talking.

"I could help you gain a place in this world. The people here are good. They will learn to love you as I do."

That was Thor, wasn't it? Damn. Loki was not going to be in a pleasant mood.

"Loki, say something, please."

Tony opened the door quietly and found Thor's tremendous shoulders blocking his way. He shifted to the side a little until he could see Loki.

Loki was motionless, except perhaps to tense his arms slightly in their hold around his knees. He wore all black today, except for the red collar of his long-sleeved tee. He seemed to want to vanish, to fade into the walls.

"Brother. Things could be the way they were before. If you would only speak to me! Remember when we would swim together, and build fortresses in the sand?"

This was apparently too much, and Loki sprang up and threw all his fury at Thor.

"Didn't you take the hint when I _stabbed_ you? I _hate_ you! Now go away and don't talk to me again!"

"But...you are my brother. I will not simply give up!"

"GO AWAY!" the frost giant shrieked, angry tears beginning in his eyes. "Do you not see this face? I cannot be what you want me to be! I cannot be your brother! Stop torturing me with promises you cannot keep!"

Thor sighed heavily and turned to leave, giving a curious glance to Tony but too involved in his own thoughts to give a greeting. Once the door closed behind him, Tony cleared his throat.

"Should I leave?"

"No, Tony Stark. You stay."

Loki sat down again, the tension gone from his body. His posture was confident and comfortable, and it was only because Tony had seen him a minute earlier that he knew to look for the small signs that the god was drained and unhappy.

The god continued, "Out of all the beings I have encountered in the Nine Realms, your company is the least offensive."

"Wow. I can't say I've heard that before."

"You're not afraid of me. You don't hate me. You're not disgusted by the sight of my face. You don't want me dead or in pain. You don't expect me to like you. You don't claim to know what's best for me. Your very indifference is your best quality as a companion."

"Woah, don't go overboard there, buddy. You'll give me a swelled head."

Loki smiled in appreciation. "I like your swelled head, so I'll also mention the fact that you're not a complete imbecile. So in addition to being inoffensive, you're also marginally entertaining."

"High praise."

"From the God of Mischief? Yes."

Oops. The eye thing might have happened again.

Anyway...

"Oh, so in the vein of keeping the God of Mischief entertained, I brought this new reactor prototype. It's got the optimal ratio you mentioned, and..."

The god seemed to brighten as the conversation took him ever farther away from thoughts of his would-be brother.


	8. Beguilement

**Chapter 8: Beguilement**

Tony Stark had to Not Think.

Yeah, right. His mind was always thinking, no matter how much diversion or how much alcohol he poured into it. There were always those unpleasant thoughts circling round in the back, threatening to drag his mood down.

Except that wasn't actually the problem this time. Or not all of it.

The problem was what Tony had begun referring to in his own head as the "Loki blackouts." Those stretches of time when he had no memory of thoughts except perhaps a vague impression of red on blue.

And the rest of the time he was trying not to worry about these, and the way his thoughts chased around each other reminded him of the storm that had been going on inside him when he knew he was dying of palladium poisoning.

_Is Loki really so defenseless? Thor says all his magic has been taken, but I mean that guy's never been the brightest bulb. Loki does have a trace of the dimensional whatsit, and yes if he had all his powers he'd have escaped by now, but what if he's working something slow and subtle? What if it's a question of exposure over time? I've certainly given him the opportunity._

And the thought of being under some kind of enchantment was scary as hell, but the alternative didn't even bear thinking about. Especially if the god found out his favorite indifferent person wasn't so indifferent to him any more.

* * *

The Avengers met again, on the subject of Loki again.

"I managed to convince Fury that Loki might as well be given the freedom of the tower, seeing as how you're giving away all our secrets to him anyway." Cap sighed, looking at Tony.

"Hey, be fair. They're _my_ secrets. If you ever invent a clean power source, I'll be sure not to blab about it to any extraterrestrials."

"I suppose that's true, and from what Bruce says, we're getting just as much from him in return about magic. Just...don't get carried away."

Clint glared around the table. "Isn't anyone else concerned about letting the God of Lies wander around our house? I'm tempted to lock myself in my rooms, and if any of you get killed, don't come crying to me."

"Katniss, honey, don't even worry about it." Tony just loved to stick his foot in it, didn't he? "We'll probably be down in the labs most of the time anyway. I'll give you a shout if he's likely to show up in the kitchen or anything."

Hawkeye just kind of gaped for a second. "Didn't realize you were going to be playing babysitter. Are we sure he's lost the ability to addle people's brains?"

"Ok, that's ridiculous, because, a), he doesn't have his magical glow stick of destiny; b), that thing was _weak;_ and c), he's a fantastic consultant and I should probably be paying _him._ No babysitting fee necessary."

Tony refused to feel bad about the "weak" comment. Hawkeye was the only one of the Avengers he hadn't managed to deliver soul-crushing insults to back on the helicarrier. He didn't want the guy to feel left out. No, what was making him sick to his stomach was the fear that Clint was absolutely right.

But Clint backed down, sighing. "Can't we at least hit him really hard in the head, just to be sure?" he said finally, but no one took it as a serious suggestion.


	9. Cookies

**Chapter 9: Cookies**

It hadn't fully occurred to Tony that volunteering to be Loki's babysitter meant keeping track of him around the clock. He could have Jarvis keep an eye out while he slept, but since the kitchen was off limits for general purposes, they would have to go somewhere else if they wanted to eat off something other than a lab bench.

So that afternoon, Tony found himself hanging out with a probably-powerless blue-skinned god in his penthouse, the same place where the same man had refused his offer of a drink and had instead thrown him out the window.

But this man looked nothing like the man he'd faced the day of the battle. The hair was almost the same, but it fell with a slightly softer shape. His skin was a deep blue, and, as Tony had noticed way back on that day when Loki had apologized about Agent Coulson, the darker color transformed the planes of his face from a slightly-too-thin angularness to something beautiful, streamlined, sculptural and powerful, like the carved prow of a ship.

Loki wasn't wearing any of his usual dramatic colors today, either. His shirt was a light sea foam color, and the pants were grey, softly worn and casual, but not coarse like denim. The clothes were in harmony with his natural dignity and grace, but downplayed anything that might have seemed harsh about him.

Tony congratulated himself - he hadn't wanted to give his tailor a heart attack by handing her a picture to illustrate Loki's coloring, so Tony had done the shopping himself. And for a man who usually slept with women, Tony Stark had a generous amount of style.

When Jarvis announced that the food had arrived, Tony found himself being suddenly jarred out of one of his "Loki blackouts." And he had been staring at the god again. Fortunately when they were in the lab that day, Tony had happened to mention something about "running around casting Expelliarmus on people" and now the ever-curious Loki was absorbed in reading _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone._

The food was Italian hoagies and chocolate chip cookies. You can get the same cheeseburger in any town in America, but there is nothing quite like a real East Coast Italian hoagie. Sometimes Tony missed them when he stayed at the Malibu house for too long.

He sat on the couch next to where Loki was perched with his book and handed over a paper-wrapped sandwich before retrieving his own.

Loki said that they reminded him of some of the food of Asgard, and Tony wasn't sure whether that was a compliment or not, especially since the god only ate half of his sandwich.

"Want a cookie?" Tony asked, holding out a large soft cookie in a fold of wax paper.

"I will try it. It's one of those sweet pastries such as you find in coffee shops, isn't it?"

"Something like that."

"That reminds me. What is this 'Cookie Monster' you once compared me to?"

"Oh, you know. Monstrous. Blue. Mercilessly devours cookies. Is actually a puppet." Tony smiled. "That one's better than I remembered. I should use it again."

"Do not," said Loki, glaring as he broke a piece off his cookie, "push your luck."

Tony laughed. "I'm Tony Stark, remember?"

Loki chewed on his cookie.

"Do you like it?"

"If I lie, will you refrain from calling me by that ridiculous name?"

"Probably not."

Loki lowered his eyelids and glared. "I hate it," he said flatly.

"Wow. I almost believe you." Tony snatched the rest of Loki's cookie. "Oh well, more for me!"

Loki just sat there, pretending to be indifferent. Tony took a bite of the cookie, watching him.

"You enjoy that tasteless thing?" Loki said, as if he were bored.

"It's _delicious,_" Tony said, drawing out the slightly muffled word. He waved the cookie under Loki's nose. "Chocolatey."

Loki grabbed Tony's hand in an ice cold grip. "What," he said, glaring, "are you trying to accomplish?"

Tony's insides developed a peculiar floating sensation as he felt the cold blue fingers encircling his. He tried to ignore it and focus on the question.

"I'm trying to figure you out."

"So I am a lab rat?"

"Yes."

"And what answers are you seeking from me now?" Loki's words were tinged with anger.

Tony turned, putting one knee up on the couch and the foot under him, so he could face Loki eye to eye. The god still had Tony's hand tightly in his own and it was starting to go numb. "I want to know why you're doing this to me."

"Doing what?"

"Making me want you."

He looked into the startled red eyes and he knew then that it was no trick.

He kissed Loki, and the lips under his were cold but his stomach exploded with heat as the god kissed him back. His hand was free now to slide into Loki's hair, and the cookie was forever lost to the chasms between the couch cushions.


	10. Toast

**Chapter 10: Toast**

Los Angeles was being shaken to death.

It wasn't a supervillain, it was the Earth itself. A huge earthquake. But whatever the cause, the Avengers wanted to help. And they'd all had a lot of experience lately with helping a banged-up city get back on its feet.

Banner volunteered to stay with Loki in the labs at Stark Tower while Tony flew the suit, and the others flew the jet to Los Angeles. As Bruce said, "There's already been more than enough smashing today."

Bruce and Loki worked mostly in silence, with the television on above their workbench, showing images of destruction and images of their friends walking into danger. Both volatile tempers tried to remain calm, to tune it out as much as possible.

Until they heard, "Iron Man is down!"

It was difficult to get any useful information from the television. There was too much yelling and speculation, and nothing to see but rubble.

"Jarvis," said Bruce, "Patch us in to the team comm system."

They heard Cap first. "Tony, can you hear me? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here." It was Tony's voice, strained but very much alive. Everyone breathed again. "Suit power's cutting in and out. Not sure if it's just the suit or the reactor..." Everyone stopped breathing again.

"Thor and I are going to get you out of there soon," Cap continued.

As Bruce and Loki looked at the television, they saw figures of red and blue digging in the rubble.

Black Widow spoke next. "I'm going to hotwire a car and Clint and I are going to Malibu."

Tony laughed, a bit weakly. "Sounds like a great weekend getaway."

"You do still have an extra suit or two there, don't you, Tony?" Tasha asked. "They're not all in the tower."

"There should -" Silence. "- cut out again. I think it is the reactor."

A grim mood settled in. Cap put on an optimistic show and kept Tony talking. But the rest of them couldn't manage that.

Seventeen terrible minutes later, Clint spoke. "Stark, your house is toast."

"That bad, huh? Well, I've got other houses."

Tasha again. "The suits...Tony, they were in the basement, weren't they?"

"'Were' is not a good word, Miss Romanoff. 'Were' sounds like a very -"

Deafening silence.

"-back now, I think. Don't go writing my eulogy yet."

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do here." Natasha's voice was a blank. "Probably not even one of you supers could dig up this mess in less than a few hours. And even if you could there's no guarantee any of the arc reactors down there are intact." She paused. "Should we come back that way, or meet you at the jet?"

Steve was out of breath now, but he managed, "Here."

"Tony, are you still there?" Loki jumped at the sound of a voice in the room with him. Bruce was taking over the talking-to-Tony duties so Cap could dig.

"Yeah, I'm hanging on. Didn't realize you were on the line, Doc."

"Of course. Loki and I were watching the news down in the lab. He's here too."

"Hey, Loki." Tony's voice still sounded strained, but suddenly it was a bit brighter. "Eaten anything interesting today? Cookies? Women's hearts?"

The laugh that Loki forced through his lips was a cool, perfect, silver lie. "I shall never tell."

Tony sighed. "You d -"

No one breathed.

Loki felt more helpless than he ever had, in his SHIELD prison cell, or under the weight of Mjolnir on his chest, or even standing before Odin with that gag on his face. His eyes were locked on the television, just an image of a pile of rubble but he knew Tony was under there, and that was the greatest pain he had ever felt. Which was saying something.

He felt that he was spiraling downwards, back into madness and anger; that the tether that had held him to sanity was about to break.

Bruce touched his arm.

"You want to save him? Then drink this." Banner held out a beaker to Loki. "It will hurt like hell, and it might kill you, but it's Tony's only chance. I'm trusting you with this. Don't let us down."

Loki took the beaker, his eyes locked on the fluid inside - clear and strangely innocuous looking. "What is it?"

"Your magic," Bruce said.

Loki hesitated exactly two more seconds, then drank it down.

It was ten more long seconds before anything happened, but then the pain began. Loki fell to one knee as the chemicals burst through his body, reshaping, twisting. Bruce pressed one of the augmented reactors into his hand, and before he felt whole enough to stand, Loki teleported.


	11. The Worst

**Chapter 11: The Worst**

Loki, pale-skinned, green-eyed, armor-clad, appeared between Thor and the Captain. Steve felt a terrible stomach-twisting blend of fear, hope and confusion. Thor only felt relief.

Loki bent immediately to dig and every chunk of concrete he touched was suddenly nowhere. As soon as he caught a glimpse of red and gold he was teleporting Tony, up the few feet through the rubble.

The circle in the suit's chest flickered and went dark again. Loki retrieved the fresh reactor from the magical pocket he had made for it, and put his other hand over Tony's horribly dented chest plates. He switched the devices.

The glow was steady. Tony's arm went up to disengage his face plate. He looked shaken but very happy to be alive.

"Tony!" Loki greeted him with a grateful smile, a smile as if he had been the one saved from the brink of death.

The sight of his face...wasn't quite perfect. Yet. "I'm sorry, do I know you?" Tony smirked. "You remind me of someone, but he has the most gorgeous red eyes..."

Loki waved his hands and muttered some words and he was blue again, wearing that deep red shirt and dark jeans.

"That's better," Tony sighed, blinking slowly in contentment.

Cap cleared his throat. "Are you all right, Tony? Can you move?"

"Oh. Right. Moving. Let's see." He and Jarvis both took internal inventory. "Bottom half of the suit is dead weight. Think I might have bruised a rib, but once I get out of the suit I should be able to move just fine if I have to."

Tony began undoing the release catches on his arms, and Cap started on the legs. Loki knew the schematics for the chest plates well enough to start on those. Now that Tony was out of danger he didn't want to exhaust his magic by popping more things in and out. Changing your own clothes was a spell so basic even Thor could do it, but right now the easiest way to get Tony out of his armor was the way it was designed to come off.

"Got your invite to Hogwarts, I see," Tony commented.

"Just in time," said Loki. "And you said it would never happen."

"Yeah, well, when I said that, I _may_ have already known what Banner was working on. Just didn't want to get your hopes up. Your biochemistry is really screwed up, you know that? Took us forever to figure it out."

Loki looked at Tony with a disapproving glare. "You taught me all that, knowing that there might be a way for me to regain my magic? I never took you for such a trusting fool."

Tony was sitting up now, removing the last of his suit and only flinching a little as the muscles in his torso complained at being used.

"Trusting? Hah! Half the time I thought you had some magic still and you were using it to get all that out of me. I couldn't figure out why I was doing it either."

"And that didn't frighten you?"

"Bitch, I'm Iron Man." Tony pulled out his most swaggerful grin.

"That's not an answer," said the God of Lies, smiling as well despite himself.

"I shall never tell," said Tony, echoing the god's earlier words as he looked into his red eyes.

Loki sighed. "Perhaps, but there is one answer that I do require."

"What's that?"

"Is it only fear or bad associations of my accustomed appearance?" the god asked. "Or do you truly prefer me in this form?"

Tony lifted up a hand to Loki's face, and his thumb traced the edge of the cold blue jaw while his fingers slid into the black hair.

"_Oh_ yeah," he said.

Then Cap cleared his throat again, and they looked up to see four Avengers staring down at them with shocked eyes, and farther away, some news cameras.

Tony grinned sheepishly up at them. He found Natasha's eyes, remembering her time as his assistant. "Face it, this is not - " Then he stopped and thought. "Okay, this _may_ be the worst thing you've caught me doing."

She couldn't help it. She laughed.


	12. Flying Steel Trap

**Chapter 12: Flying Steel Trap**

It took a lot of convincing to get Clint to fly them home with Loki on board, magic and all. But as Tasha pointed out, what was better in this situation than having all the Avengers escort him back to Stark Tower? There was really nothing to do. It was hard to justify beating up even a supervillain if he wasn't resisting coming with you.

The back of the jet was full of an interesting jumble of emotions. After Tony's close call and the revalation of his relationship with Loki, none of them could bear to stay behind and continue to help with the aftermath of the quake. Humans with big machines belonging to the government (including Warmachine, who had just arrived) had taken over the job. And it had already been a long day.

Tony had had his ribs wrapped. He wasn't sure that any of them were cracked but the bandages mostly served as a reminder not to move, because he was definitely sore.

Loki sat next to him, and although he was still sporting blue skin and jeans, he looked more like a king than Tony had ever seen him. He sat confidently, relaxed and in control, as if he owned the plane. And since Tony would probably have given it to him if he asked, that wasn't quite as insane as it sounded.

Steve sat across the table from Tony. Tasha was next to him, probably pretending to sleep, but it could have been a double bluff. Thor sat staring at Loki from the bench seating on the other side of the plane, but he had given up trying to talk after Loki kept putting him on magical mute.

Steve had been frowning and looking alternately at Tony and Loki for almost a full twenty minutes now. Tony broke the silence.

"Spit it out, Cap. You're driving me nuts."

"The thing is, I don't think I have a right to say anything. I mean this is all _strange,_ but there's no one part of this that I can pick out and say 'you messed up there.'"

"So what's with the imitation of a gargoyle? Stop scowling down at us with your stone face."

"I've got questions, I'm just not sure how to ask them."

"You know I'd take a plague of foot-in-mouth over awkward silence any day. Shoot."

Steve looked warily at Loki, then forged bravely ahead.

"Uh...is this going to be a long-term thing?"

"Jeez, Steve, we just had our first kiss yesterday. We haven't really discussed it." Tony turned to Loki. "What do you think, O Glorious Blue One?"

Loki looked back at him contemplatively. "I think my concept of long-term and yours are somewhat different," he said with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, me and long-term relationships. Not a great track record, as I'm sure you've heard. Can I start counting them that way at two weeks?"

"Now who is the capricious one?"

"Not the worst quality you could have. Some people here eat women's hearts." Tony and Loki were glaring at each other now.

"Well then, it's a good thing you're not a woman and don't have a heart!" Loki spat.

"No, the worst thing you've done to me is THROW ME OFF A BUILDING!"

"DON'T anger the god please!" Steve said in a strangled voice.

Loki and Tony, eyes still locked, slowly began to smile. Soon they were laughing until tears were in Tony's eyes (although some of that was his bruised ribs).

"What's going on?" Steve asked, bewildered.

Tony stopped laughing long enough to speak. "Jarvis. _tell_ me you've got video of his face, because I'm sure it was priceless but I couldn't tear my eyes off my beautiful co-conspirator."

"Yes, Sir."

"That was far more amusing than taking over the world ever could be," said Loki, and he grabbed Tony by the neck and kissed him hard.

Steve was blinking rapidly, still trying to wrap his brain around the whole thing. Natasha just sighed and facepalmed. Thor had a small smile and was shaking his head. He'd seen Loki do such things too many times before. Also he was at the right angle to have possibly caught Tony's wink.

"So your real answer is, I think Loki's going to be sticking around," said Tony, still chuckling and now slightly disheveled.

"Sticking around and being impossible, you mean," Tasha said with an unwilling smile.

Regardless of the sorcerer's apparent good humor at this moment, Steve thought he would save the rest of his questions until they weren't in a flying steel trap.


	13. Insane

**Chapter 13: Insane**

Pepper was there when the plane landed. Tony stepped out first, to loud cries of, "Oh my God, Tony, are you all right?"

"Remember that banana you accidentally left under everything else in your purse for a whole day?"

"Ye-e-es..." Pepper answered. "That was your fault, by the way."

"I kind of feel like that."

"So...heavy bruising, but still relatively intact?"

"Pretty much."

Pepper took a deep breath. "All right. Then can you please explain this?"

She held out a tablet, and on the screen was a picture of him sitting in a pile of rubble and armor pieces, and, it had to be admitted, gazing all googly into Loki's eyes. The headline underneath read simply, _What is wrong with this picture?_

"That could be a puzzler, couldn't it?" Tony responded. "Where would you like me to start?"

"Is that Loki, and why is he _blue?_"

"Yes, and genetics. Next?"

"_Why_ isn't he locked up? And _why_ is your _hand_ on his _face?_"

"These are more complex questions. But I'll boil it down for you. He saved my life, and we're dating."

Pepper covered her face with a hand. "No, no, no, this can't be real. This is a nightmare, and I would like to wake up now."

"I'd pinch you, but my boyfriend might get jealous."

"LOKI? Seriously, Tony?" She looked at him in piercing disbelief, then brought her hand up to her temples again. "I was afraid this would happen."

"What, me and a Norse god? Long odds, but then again I am Tony Stark."

"No, that if I broke up with you it would send you seriously over the edge. Tony, I think you need help."

Steve, Natasha and Thor had come out now, Loki having waited to give him a chance to explain. Tony wasn't sure it had helped. But Steve came over and gave it a go as well. Pepper liked Steve. Steve followed rules. Steve was nice.

"Miss Potts," he said, "please give this a chance. I know it's crazy, but it seems to work for them."

Loki stepped out of the plane then. Pepper sighed and bit her lip. Then she shook her head. "I can't do this. Steve, please make sure he doesn't die?"

"I'll do my best, Ma'am," he said, and she left.

* * *

Nick Fury was the next obstacle that they had to face. He was waiting in the Avengers conference room to debrief them as soon as they arrived. Bruce was there too, very glad to see both Tony and Loki alive and well, and smirking.

Fury was not happy. "I agreed to give Loki the freedom of the _tower._ So someone explain to me how he ended up in _Los Angeles_ this afternoon."

"Well, he teleported himself out." Banner cringed slightly. "I may have helped him get his magic back."

"You _gave_ the _psychotic god_ his _magic_ back? How the hell did that seem like a good idea to you?"

"As I saw it at the time I had two choices: watch Iron Man die and Loki lose what was left of his sanity, or save both of them. I happen to like these guys when they're not acting out due to emotional trauma."

Fury sighed. "And how do you see this all playing out, Dr. Banner?"

"I think it's going to be very helpful to have Loki's magic on our side."

"Are you suggesting that we let the villain who the Avengers were created to fight become an Avenger himself? Do you hear how that sounds?"

"I don't think there's going to be a question of 'letting,'" said Loki, or a clone of him did, appearing near Fury in his Asgardian form. Tony was pretty sure the blue one who was holding his hand under the table was the real one. "I don't believe you'll be able to stop me. But don't worry," he said, draping a hand over the shoulder of the currently appropriately named Fury and smiling oddly, "I've become quite the entomology enthusiast."

Even Fury didn't dare to move the hand that was still on his shoulder. "You may have a point," he said, still glaring with his one terrible eye at the pale face so close to his. "But if you step on one more ant, we will find a way, and this time Asgard will get you back in pieces."

"And it will not be the first time they have," smirked the clone, and vanished.

An exasperated Fury told them all to go away, they were too insane to debrief properly. And so they did.


	14. Persuasive Force

**Chapter 14: Persuasive Force**

They went up to Avengers HQ, and Tony guessed that Clint had decided there was no point in trying to keep away from someone who could teleport, because he didn't even complain when Tony and Loki got off the elevator with them, instead of heading all the way up to the penthouse.

When Clint sat down at the table and Loki followed, Tony thought that might be pushing it. But Loki waved him off, and said to Clint, "I would like the opportunity to speak to you." So Tony gave them space, and moved to the TV area, where the debate was raging between ordering pizza or Japanese food. Tony weighed in on the side of pizza. He liked sushi, but something about almost dying makes you want to eat familiar food for a while afterwards. He'd noticed that the first time he'd come home with this hunk of metal in his chest.

After he weighed in he turned his ear back to the conversation in the dining area, just in case intervention seemed warranted.

Loki was speaking. "What I did to you seemed necessary at the time, the lesser of several evils. I picked you to turn because you had heart; because forcing you into servitude would not break you. You were strong enough. But now...I see how it affects you and I wonder if I could have found another way. It haunts me." Loki looked Clint in the eye. "Do you believe it possible that you could ever forgive me?"

Clint sighed. "Damn, you live up to your name, Silver Tongue. That was pretty slick." He looked down at his hands, resting on the table. He was playing with a mechanical release, watching the calipers open and close. Finally he said, "I'll be the first to admit that people can change. If I didn't believe that I would have killed Tasha a long time ago. I just...don't trust you yet. And the only thing that can change that is time."

"Hey Loki, what do you like on your pizza?" Natasha called. Tony was willing to bet she was checking up on the conversation too, planning on gauging Clint's reaction to the interruption and deciding whether or not to rescue him. But Loki got up at that, walking in the direction of the others, so rescue was unnecessary.

"I don't know," said Loki. "But I tend to like vegetables."

"Finally we've got somebody to go in with Bruce on the veggie delight!" Tony crowed. "He never finishes a whole one, and he doesn't even like cold pizza! It's practically a crime."

So they decided on the same order as last time: One pepperoni, for Tony and Clint; One sausage and onion, for Cap and Natasha; One pepperoni and sausage, which Thor would finish himself; and one veggie delight, this time shared between Bruce and Loki.

Loki did like the pizza, and he and Bruce chatted over their box about how a metal or crystalline magical object could be used as a secondary source of power for biological magic if a way of circumventing its usual function could be built in.

None of the others seemed to be following their conversation, so Tony didn't clue them into the fact that Loki was basically trying to get Bruce to help make him a new magic wand out of an arc reactor. Tony didn't think Clint and Natasha would be happy about that, and even Steve still might have reservations about this "the villain becomes the newest avenger" thing.

Only Tony and Bruce had been forced to make the decision wholeheartedly. Some actions were irrevocable tokens of trust.

And Thor had never really had a choice.

Just as he was thinking that, Thor's voice boomed through the room.

"You look to be enjoying yourself in this good company, Brother!" he said with a grin. "Is this not a feast worthy of the halls of Asgard?"

Loki's face immediately shut down.

Tony stood up and pointed to Thor. "You. Pikachu. Here. Now."

Thor followed him to the kitchen area. "What is it, Tony?"

"We need to talk about you and Loki."

"What about us?"

"You are not going to get anything but anger out of him if you keep talking to him like that."

Thor looked downcast. "That may very well be true, but what else can I do?"

"Ok, I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to tell all of the Avengers that every time you say the word 'brother,' they should give you a good swift knock on the back of the head. In fact maybe I'll make up a few customized baseball bats to leave aroud HQ that say 'Thor, don't be an idiot.'"

"I don't understand."

"You need to forget that you have a brother. You need to let Loki be who and what he needs to be. Treat him like a human you met on the street, or, I don't know, a frost giant at a diplomatic event."

"I cannot! He is my brother and he always will be!"

Tony whalloped him in the back of the head with the heel of his hand, and then continued talking.

"You need to try. Hey, maybe it'll work better than you think. Face it, right now he looks more like he's related to the Enigma than to you."

"Who is this Enigma?"

"The bluest human we've got. It doesn't matter. The point is..." Tony sighed.

"I know you want your brother back. That's not going to happen. Your brother is dead. Meet Loki Laufeysson. Take him or leave him, he's all you're going to get."

Thor scowled, but it was a thoughtful expression. "Thank you, Tony. I think I am beginning to understand. I will consider your advice."

"And I...will go ice my hand," said Tony as Thor walked away.


	15. Augmentation

**Chapter 15: Augmentation**

Tony, Bruce and Loki were down in Tony's favorite workshop again. Bruce was doing a follow-up scan on Loki with the magic detector.

"The reading is a whole lot stronger now," said Bruce. "Much higher than Thor. I don't suppose you know if that's normal for you."

"I know my talent was stronger than his, but not by how much. He is almost completely untrained and tends to rely on Mjolnir's power rather than his own magic. I don't know what he is capable of."

"I wish I had a whole mess of Æsir and Jotunn to study with this. I'd love to know the natural variation in each species, and how it relates to ability."

"I believe I am more powerful than I was. Normally I could not have teleported that distance, then moved all that material without exhausting my powers."

"So the formula imbued you with magic past your natural state?" Bruce looked excited. "That makes me wonder if a similar process could allow a human to access the same kind of energies."

"If you're looking for a human test subject, don't look at me," said Tony from across the room where he was using a laser etcher to carve 'Thor, don't be an idiot' into a stack of baseball bats. "I'm busy."

"No," said Bruce. "I learned my lesson about human testing. I only give dangerous experimental serums to frost giants now."

Loki and Tony chuckled. "Our senses of humor seem to be rubbing off on you, Dr. Banner," said Tony. "You may want to get that looked at."

Later they all gathered around to try and figure out how to adapt an arc reactor for use with biological magic. When it was ready to fabricate, they took a food break, and Bruce left after that to get some sleep.

When they had finished assembling and activating it, Loki demonstrated the switch. By touching the reactor, Loki changed its glow from blue (normal electricity producing mode) to green (magic producing mode). When he took his finger away, it returned to its original blue color. He explained that a metal mounting such as a staff could conduct the energy as well, as it had from the crystal in the Chitauri spear.

Tony was surprised when Loki's next step _wasn't_ to make a staff for the thing.

"This is not a weapon," Loki said. "It is so much more. It is an extension of me."

Tony blinked. That sounded familiar. "See?" he said, apparently to the ceiling. "Somebody else understands! It's not about combat. It's about being able to do whatever the hell you want!"

Loki chuckled. "You have a unique brand of eloquence. Rather like a blow to the head. Crude, but very much accurate. I do what I want."

"Uh huh." Tony looked down at what Loki was working on. "So...what exactly are you doing to my holotable?"

"Fixing it." Loki had the green glowing reactor in one hand, pulling magical energy from it for his task. A thin band of golden metal was embedding iself around the edge of the tabletop.

"It worked okay for me. You're not redecorating my workshop, are you? If you are, at least let me help pick the curtains."

"I find your user interface tiresome."

"And a little gold inlay is going to help with that?"

"Watch." Loki put the reactor down on the corner of the table, touching the gold band. He rested his fingers on the table edge, and Tony watched as the holographic wireframes of plans were opened, viewed at all angles and manipulated, all without any apparent input from either of them except for Loki's fingers laying completely still on the table.

"So is this a magic thing now? Can I still use it?"

"Try."

The images responded to Tony's gestures just as they always had. Except that after he had run the table through its paces and actually started to work on one of the designs that had caught his eye, Loki started turning the model so he could see and throwing things up into the hologram too, and that was going to take some getting used to.

"Uh...you're in my space."

"I went to a lot of trouble to keep my hands out of your way."

"You're in my _thinking_ space." Tony pointedly pulled the model closer to himself, away from Loki.

"That _was_ the idea," said Loki, causing the model to turn so that Tony would see the improvements he had made to the coolant system.

"Well would you butt out, then, because...huh," Tony said as his brain processed what he was seeing. Then he made a few changes of his own and used a tossing motion to send the virtual device back to Loki.

They went back and forth like this for a while. The whole thing turned into a wordless game, or argument, or possibly even something resembling a food fight after it became a game of speed, and colors were flying everywhere, and it was clear they were just making a mess. Tony gave up, and crumpled up the whole file into a ball and threw the scribble of light into Loki's face.

It bounced off Loki's forehead before coming to rest on the table, which Tony realized was an apology on Loki's part - he was letting Tony hit him. Without someone else taking control, the image would have gone right through the frost giant.

Tony smiled. "That's right, you deserved that. Dragging me out of my comfort zone in my own workshop." He walked around the table to stand next to the god, who was still looking unsure. Tony put an arm around his waist.

"But that was the most fun, inspiring...I don't even know how to explain it." He looked up into Loki's deep red eyes, searching for the meaning he was looking for, and he got lost again. Next thing he knew, he was kissing Loki, and with that came the amazing sensation that they were two galaxies colliding, merging and melting into a single pool of twinkling lights.


	16. Exposed

**Chapter 16: Exposed**

Bruce woke up and came down to the lab with his coffee, to find Tony and Loki standing on opposite sides of the table, regarding an armor design.

"Jarvis, have they been down here all night?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Have they eaten?"

"Not significantly."

Bruce approached the table. "I know for a fact that at least one of you is mortal," he said. "That means eating and sleeping are required activities. Loki, you're supposed to be _not_ killing Tony. Keeping him alive was part of our deal, remember?"

All Bruce got in response to this was a couple of murmured greetings.

"Jarvis? Bagels. Half-dozen. Delivery to this floor's lobby."

"Yes, Sir."

Then Bruce looked at the hologram over the table, and noticed that not all of the movements and changes were due to Tony's motions, and he noticed Loki's hands resting against the new gold border.

"What did you do to the table?"

"I modified it to respond to commands similar to those I use to shape illusions," Loki said, without looking away from the hologram.

Banner raised his eyebrows. "Fancy." Then he turned his attention to the virtual armor.

It was angular and stylized, with no face plate, jet boots or gloves, and the glow that emanated from the chest plate was green.

"This doesn't look like Iron Man."

"It's not," said Tony, smirking. "Good catch, Doc."

Bruce thought he had been prepared for what Loki being an Avenger would mean. That he trusted Loki not to betray them. But somehow seeing that armor led him to realize how much doubt he still had. Seeing how much Tony was willing to do for the god. Seeing all that Stark Tech being prepared to protect someone much less vulnerable than Clint or Natasha, or even Steve.

Of course Bruce knew what those three would say if Tony offered them armor. That they had training to work with the equipment they had. Their suits all offered some protection. Clint was a long-range fighter. Natasha needed to be able to move freely. Cap wanted to understand the equipment he carried and was uncomfortable depending on anything with more moving parts than a gun. Besides, he had his shield.

Loki was an armor-wearer, and he did need a new look. It made sense. Bruce understood all this. But still, he had that kick of reaction he hadn't expected.

Bruce caught Loki looking at him and wondered how much of this the father of lies could read on his face. The first time Bruce had set eyes on this creature, he had realized how it took one person on the ragged edge of irrationality to recognize another. He had seen right then the struggle going on within Loki. The different plans and motivations. "Like a bag of cats," he had said.

And Loki had had lifetimes' worth more practice.

"I am used to being mistrusted and disbelieved," Loki said quietly. "Please, don't let yourself get worked up over it."

Apparently, most of it. Interesting.

"Dr. Banner, the food has arrived," said Jarvis.

As Bruce went to retrieve bagels, he heard Tony behind him, saying "What was that about?"

"Nothing," said the father of lies.

Bruce force fed them bagels and watched as they tweaked the designs. He scanned them both again with the magic detector, as well as the new green reactor and the table, both separately and together. Tony finally pronounced himself satisfied with the mechanics of the armor, and they began arguing color.

They argued over the inclusion of red or green, but eventually decided to leave most of the armor the base gold/titanium color, and add a few blue accents. Once it was being fabricated, Bruce finally got them to go to bed. But since they both went up to Tony's penthouse, he had no idea whether they actually slept.


	17. Do No Wrong

**Chapter 17: Do No Wrong**

Loki sat on the couch in the penthouse, Tony's sleeping head in his lap. He combed his fingers through the just-barely-greying hair and thought.

This overgrown boy was so inside-out. Hiding all the things he should share and sharing all the things nobody wanted to know. Never relaxing in the presence of his closest friends; falling asleep in the arms of the enemy.

Picking apart the faults of others until they all deserted him, but never really judging anyone who tolerated it well enough to stick around.

Being with Tony was like riding a bilchsteim: jarring, unpredictable, idiotic on the face of it, but the safest place in the world if you could manage to hang on.

Loki thought he had probably loved this man from the moment Tony had stepped out of his armor and into his tower and had that smile on his face like he was more invincible than ever. It was fascinating to watch him, as he radiated that lie through his skin, daring Loki to test it.

And then the human began pulling apart Loki's own lies, about wanting to rule, about thinking he could ever win. Tony goaded when he should have stalled. He was maddening.

Something in the back of Loki's mind told him that enslaving this man's brain to his would be something he would regret forever. But the rest of him was coming apart under Stark's scrutiny, and Loki would have done anything to get him to stop.

So Loki raised the staff, and called Stark's bluff.

And the staff failed.

Somewhere deep in the back of Loki's mind, he had never been so happy to be wrong.

All of Loki's life, the centuries he had existed, everything he did was the wrong thing. Every step, he regretted. Every choice came out badly. Until he believed he was incapable of doing anything right.

But when he was in the presence of this small mortal man, this bright spark of a paradox, none of that mattered. With Tony, even the wrong choices came out right.

Loki slid down until he was in a more comfortable position, head and shoulders resting against the arm of the couch, body laid out beside Tony's, the human's head now resting on his chest.

He kissed Tony on the forehead, and then drifted to sleep.

More at home here than he had ever been.


	18. Mystery

**Chapter 18: Mystery**

That evening the Avengers were hanging out eating sushi. Except for Steve and Clint, who preferred food that wasn't wrapped in seaweed. They were eating what the restaurant's menu referred to as "hibachi," but Natasha assured them that that was a gross misuse of the term, several times over if you started with the word's actual use in Japan.

Loki had never had sushi before, so he tried as many different varieties as he could. He ended up not having eaten two of the same kind. There was a lot of sushi, since, for one thing, sushi was on the ever-growing "list of things that Thor finds amusingly tiny."

The party got loudish, and Loki settled into the corner with a book. Tony peered over Loki's shoulder to see what he was reading.

"The Prisoner of Azkaban? I have a feeling you'll like that one. Look out for Sirius." Tony chuckled, and Loki's interest in the book went up. He was set to become absorbed in it, but then something else caught everyone's attention.

The TV was on in the background, turned to the news. So when a blue face appeared on the screen, someone yelled, "Turn it up! It's that picture!"

"Theories abound as to who this new hero is, and some even claim that he's not a hero at all - in fact, quite the opposite! But the big question is, what is his relationship to Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man? In this picture, captured during the aftermath of the massive earthquake in Los Angeles on Monday, the two of them seem to be sharing a tender moment. Let's go to the street and see what people are saying about this mysterious blue-skinned man."

"He must be a mutant or experiment or something. You know, like the Hulk? I wonder what his powers are."

"It's just a dude in some face paint. Probably a fan of Iron man trying to get a piece of that armor. Stark's just dazed from his accident. Occam's Razor, man."

"He's an incubus. You can tell because he's irresistible to absolutely everyone and he has the mark of the devil on his forehead."

"It's the same man who tried to destroy New York! Why can't anyone else see that? He's got all the Avengers under his spell now. We need to destroy them all for the safety of the planet!"

"This is pretty obviously 'shopped. The color variation in the blue tones just isn't wide enough. And I mean come on. Tony Stark and a dude?"

"Who knows, but they say he saved Iron Man's life. I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up next time the Avengers have a mission."

The newscaster's face returned to the screen. "We've been calling him the Midnight Mystery. And the world is on the lookout to see when and how he'll show up again."

Steve turned down the TV again as a commercial came on.

"The Midnight Mystery. That's not bad," said Tony, looking at Loki. "What do you think?"

"It doesn't matter to me," he said.

"Sounds like a halloween event I went to once," said Clint, smiling a bit.

"Hey, Circus Act. People who live in glass houses shouldn't use projectile weapons," Tony threw back.

"All right, all right. It's pretty good."

Thor began speaking. "Brother - " Loki made a flicking gesture with one hand and a baseball bat flew out of the corner and thwacked the Asgardian on the back of the head. It then rotated to float in front of Thor's eyes, displaying its message.

"Whose idea was it again to let Loki read Harry Potter?" said a startled Natasha as the bat flew past her on its way back to its corner.

"You insist on using that word, 'let,' but it simply doesn't apply to me," said Loki.

"Loki," Thor began again. "Would you have us lie to the people of Earth about your identity?"

"Your choices are yours, and my choices are mine. My choice was to appear before the public in Los Angeles, and I was prepared for any number of consequences that might have had. I never intended to conceal my identity. It was Tony who suggested I change forms, if you recall." Loki went back to his book.

Cap spoke up now. "I hate to admit it, but I think it's best to keep this secret. We don't want to scare people. And the only thing Fury will hate more than working with the enemy is having everybody know about it."

Thor sighed heavily, but agreed. It was their planet, after all.


	19. Protective

**Chapter 19: Protective**

He didn't look medieval, or Asgardian, or even like Iron Man. But with a nod to all those. A light, flexible layer of fine blue scale mail covered his arms, ending in gold bracers. The angular chest plate echoed the lines of some of his favorite Asgardian armor, but had a cleanness of design that spoke to Tony's involvement. More of the deep blue scale mail hung down from his waist, over midnight blue pants which were full of hidden tricks like Kevlar and temperature responsive material.

The helmet did not have horns. They figured with the red eyes, it would have been too much for his new positive public image. But with his regal bearing and sideways smile, Tony didn't know how anyone could miss that this was still Loki, god of mischief.

They were just testing the metallic contact strip beneath the chest plate under different conditions, when Loki stiffened.

"The Chitauri are back."

Tony wanted to ask how he knew, was he sure, but the well-hidden fear in those red eyes pushed those questions to the back. "Where, and how many?" He asked instead.

"Only one leviathan, and its complement. They are a few minutes away yet."

"You think they're heading here?"

"They will be looking for me." Loki smiled darkly. "I _did_ mention that when SHIELD interrogated me."

"I don't particularly want my tower smashed up by the Chitauri again."

"Yes, maybe we should take this elsewhere." Loki looked thoughtful. "I have an idea. Meet me on that island with the metal sculpture. We can draw them there to fight."

"Wait, the Statue of Liberty? Fury will kill us if we get that thing destroyed."

"Your priorities are, as always, stunningly superficial. I'm sure the rest of your team will have other concerns." Loki smiled mockingly and disappeared before Tony could retort.

Tony put on his suit, and called the others. "Time for one more round with the Chitauri."

* * *

"This is _not_ his fault."

Tony stalked back and forth in front of Thor and Natasha. Bruce was hanging back in the dining area, in case Tony's anger proved too contagious. Steve and Clint were absent. They were in the hospital.

"Tony, he abandoned us in the middle of an ambush." Tasha stared him down calmly, but she let her own anger show, bubbling like magma under the surface. "He led us there, they surrounded us, and he disappeared. What were we supposed to think?"

"That he had a plan. He always has a plan. If _somebody_ who _claims_ to know him had _listened_ to what he was saying and not tried to follow him like some _big shaggy sheepdog_ with a _hammer..._" Tony glared down at the god of thunder on the couch.

"I wanted to protect my..." Thor's jaw clenched over his next word.

"Do you even listen to anything he says? I don't think you do, and you'd better start. Because he is ten times smarter than you, and almost as experienced in battle if half the stories you tell are true. He can take care of himself, and maybe he would have preferred it if you had protected, oh, say, _Clint?_"

Thor cringed. The archer would be fine, after his bones knit.

"And he managed to take out most of them with that ice thing he did. It was a good plan." Tony rounded on Natasha again. "You just had to push him. To blame all this on him."

"He _is_ the reason they came."

"Yes, and blame him for that if you need to. Not for trying the best thing he knew to stop them. And not for what Thor did. Loki doesn't need to hear any more crap for trying to do the smart thing instead of the noble-looking thing. He doesn't need to hear how being a smartass doesn't endear him to anybody. Some of us have brains, okay? And if we get put down every time for trying to use them, it's no wonder we start to go a little over the edge and maybe fight back."

Tasha was actually a little frightened of this man who was shouting in her face. Stark had never burned inside like this.

She backed down. She nodded. "I'm sorry. You're right. I could have handled that better."

Tony's angry expression was blunted a little with surprise. "Well, good then." After a moment, he sat down.

"I suddenly want Thai food. Does anyone else want Thai food?"

* * *

Loki was sulking somewhere in the labs. To distract himself, he was practicing using the computers, poking through all the available data on what the humans had managed to learn from the Tesseract. Of course, it was all hacked from SHIELD's computers, but Tony liked to give them a little illegal visit every now and then to make sure they weren't doing anything exceptionally stupid.

Currently he was browsing a file in the Phase 3 folder, entitled Crystal Specimen 12: Planned Experiments.

And then Loki saw it. That critical piece of data.

He knew what he needed to do.


	20. Take the Shot

**Chapter 20: Take the Shot**

Loki was in his human persona again, pale skin and overcoat. He needed to be inconspicuous, and frost giants were anything but.

He walked the hallways of the SHIELD facility, a hand on the green arc reactor in his pocket. No one was able to trigger the alarm.

He reached his destination and entered the room silently. He took in the lab setup, grateful for his time in Stark's research areas. The first man he dropped was the one at the critical controls. He walked towards the limp body, taking out the other researchers as they approached, until the lab was full of motionless bodies. Then he flipped the switch to cut power to the equipment.

"I recognize you. From the news."

He turned and saw Jane Foster, who still stood where she had when he entered.

"You're Loki, Thor's..." She saw a shadow pass over his eyes, and made a mental connection. "uh...person he grew up with."

Loki smiled. "Thor told me you were clever."

"He told me you were in a cell at Stark Tower without any magic."

"You haven't talked to him since Saturday, have you? He always complains how busy you are during the week. A lot has happened the last few days. The Avengers have decided to trust me, and gave me back my magic."

"Oh, I did read the myths, Loki. I know you're a liar. And that doesn't make any sense. Why would they just let you go free? After what you did to that SHIELD base, to Dr. Selvig and the others? After all the trouble SHIELD went through to protect me from you?" Her eyes widened. "That's it. You're here for me, aren't you? To kidnap me, or kill me?"

"Of course you don't believe me. I'm the villain, aren't I?" Loki laughed softly.

* * *

A roaring mad Fury was on the line to the Avengers. As Jarvis put him on speaker, his voice burst into the room.

"Stark, your pet villain escaped and is wreaking havoc at one of my facilities! You had better go clean this up _now!_"

Tony felt his chest tighten with a feeling that he sternly told himself was not panic. He ran to get his suit, because whatever was about to happen he knew Iron Man would need to be there.

"Are you sure it's him?" he could hear Bruce asking as the comm in his suit came up.

"He put all the guards to sleep at once. And then they all just woke up again, like that. Tell me what kind of drug or tech can do that."

"It could be another sorcerer," said Bruce doubtfully."

"Given out any arc reactors to any other sorcerers recently, Stark?" Fury's words assaulted his ears. "'Cause the readings from the lab he just _stole from_ say he has one."

Tony forced himself to keep breathing. "There has to be a reason he's doing this."

"Uh, yeah, 'cause he's insane," Clint said. "_Criminally_ insane." They were surprised to hear him on the comm, but Bruce supposed Hawkeye having his leg in a cast wouldn't stop him from shooting.

Steve sighed. "It does look a bit like he was only hanging around with us so we'd fight off that second round of Chitauri for him."

Tony fought the urge to reach through the comm circuits and strangle Hawkeye and Captain America. He didn't know exactly how he had been planning on doing that, but he knew he could have found a way.

Fury's voice was in their ears again. "Damn it! He has a hostage! Thor...it's Jane Foster."

Tony had Jarvis turn down the volume on his comm, be cause he knew that agonized roar was coming. Still, he flinched at the sound of it, an unfamiliar twinge of guilt piercing his chest at the thought that he may have contributed to that pain.

Thor wouln't wait to fly there as fast as he could, ahead of the others. So Tony flew as well. This concerned them both personally.

Iron Man landed just a second or two after Thor, staying behind the angry god with the large hammer while he assessed the situation.

Jane and Loki stood side by side on the rooftop, surrounded by a blue bubble of shielding like that which he had used to protect the Tesseract. Crystal Specimen 12 sat on the ground in front of them.

"Why are you doing this?" Thor roared at his adopted brother.

"It's quite simple. There is something I need, and I believe this is the surest way of getting it."

"Why involve Jane?"

"Jane is a game piece, the way Selvig and Barton were. This crystal I found here has been very helpful in convincing her. I know how much you care for her, Thor. So how much leverage does that give me?"

"You need to do what he says," Jane said flatly, and her eyes glowed with a strange blue light.

Thor hesitated, glancing behind him to look at Iron Man.

"Don't look to the others!" Loki taunted him by putting a hand on the junction of Jane's neck and shoulder. The scientist did not react. "Tell me now, what would you do for her safety?"

Tony looked into the god's eyes, trying to understand what was going on inside Loki's head. He didn't see what he expected. He struggled to understand the meaning, but really there was only one thing he could do. He gritted his teeth and took a shot at Loki.

The shield wavered and fell in on itself. Crystal Specimen 12 was suddenly unprotected.

Mjolnir came down with a thunderous crack, obliterating the crystal and denting the roof.

The shield disappeared. Jane ran to Thor, who gathered her up in his arms immediately.

"I'm fine, Thor. Everything's fine," she said.

Loki had shed his armor, along with his human skin tone, in favor of some of the clothes Tony had picked out for him. He held out his hands in relieved surrender. "It's over," he said.

Tony lifted his face plate. "Are you sure? Any unsuspecting pickle jars you need Mjolnir to open?"

"Somebody please tell me what the hell is going on," said Fury's disembodied voice in their ears.


	21. Black

**Chapter 21: Black**

"I'm the villain, aren't I?" Loki laughed softly. "The insane sorcerer. The dreaded picture in all the papers. I'm Sirius Black."

She blinked. "Did you seriously just refer to Prisoner of Azkaban?"

"It is incredibly appropriate."

She processed this. "So if you're Sirius Black, where is the secret villain who is really to blame for all this?"

Loki pointed to the large blueish crystal on the pedestal, the subject of the aborted test.

"Crystal Specimen 12. If you had completed this experiment, you would have brought Yggdrasil down on all of us."

She stared at him. "Are you sure?"

Loki looked annoyed. "How sure do I have to be to want to stop an experiment that may have destroyed this planet and everyone on it, including myself?"

"You couldn't just tell somebody to stop it?"

"There wasn't time. I only learned of it an hour ago. Stark may trust me enough, and perhaps Banner and Thor, but your director decidedly does not."

"What about these people?" She gestured to the still figures of her colleagues.

"They're only sleeping. They'll live." He looked at her with a face mostly unreadable, but apologetic. "I am sorry for attempting to kill Thor. I was not quite myself then. Also, now that I have learned your Midgardian perspective on the preservation of life and health, I find that it appeals to me. Death, after all, provides very little entertainment value."

That had been the last human concern standing between her and her intense curiosity. "All right, then. Can you tell me what we were doing wrong?"

"If you are content to listen, I will be happy to explain. But first, I must dispose of this." He lifted the crystal from the pedestal, and examined it. His eyebrows drew together as he turned it over in his hands.

"Its link to Yggdrasil is already too strong, and it is growing. I don't have the power to destroy it, and we still don't have the luxury of time to explain. I'll have to get creative." His mouth quirked. "And perhaps Thor's survival will end up providing me with enough entertainment to make it worthwhile."

* * *

Jane and Loki sat companionably on the roof of the facility, watching the sun set.

"What do you know of the forging of Mjolnir?"

"Not very much. Was it really 'forged in a dying star?'"

"In a manner of speaking."

"What's that supposed to mean? Was it forged in a star or not?"

"Yes, that part is true. But the star was not dying - at least, not before the forging of Mjolnir."

Jane and Loki spent some time hashing out terminology they could both understand. The star had been a red supergiant, but nowhere near the end of its lifetime as such.

The smiths, if such a humble word could be used, initiated core collapse prematurely, diverting the remaining nuclear energy in order to force the uru that was to become a hammer to form its bond with Yggdrasil. It was a stronger bond than anticipated and caused what was more than a supernova - it was an outpouring of energy from another dimension.

"I was not yet born, but to hear Odin tell it, he pushed back the tide of fire through sheer will. He pushed until not only the energy, but also the mass of the star was pushed back through the link provided by the uru. That mass exists now in Yggdrasil, to be called out in Mjolnir a little at a time, when needed. It is still an extraordinarily dangerous object, and when I am in my right mind I would not even consider wielding it.

"I do not know what truly went on, or how one would stop such a reaction if it happened again. And this experiment had none of the safeguards that were used then. You could have torn open Yggdrasil just as wide as those smiths did.

"There are so few right ways to make a magical object, and so many wrong ones. The genius of the arc reactor is its stability." Loki looked thoughtful. "Asgardians are ambitious. They would rather have the one most powerful thing. Even if it destroys the universe. Leave it to humans to miniaturize magic. To spread it around, to give everyone a taste of power."

Jane heard the familiar whoosh and crackle of Thor and his hammer approaching, as well as a faint roar.

"Here they come. How convenient that the two fastest Avengers are ours. They are the ones we need."

Jane wanted to ask about the "ours" comment, but the two red-clad heroes were here. It was time for the show.

Loki baited Thor, and casually mentioned the crystal.

"Tell me now, what would you do for her safety?" he said in his most crazy-evil voice. Then, Loki winked at Iron Man.

Tony muted his comm and lowered stabilizer power to 25%. He gritted his teeth and took a shot at Loki. The shield retreated.

Mjolnir fell, and Loki's face relaxed into relief. _I knew it,_ Tony thought. That was the same wink, the one he'd given Loki on the plane, that said _come on, take your best shot. Let's give them a show._

"It's over," said Loki, going blue.

Tony opened his face plate to grin at his boyfriend. "Are you sure? Any unsuspecting pickle jars you need Mjolnir to open?"

Fury was yelling over the comm.

"I believe," said Tony, "that one of your Phase 3 experiments needed that particular TLC that can only be provided by Thor's hammer."

More yelling.

"You're damn lucky I hack your systems regularly and let Loki see the data. It means you've got the only person in the galaxy who's an actual expert on the workings of interdimensional artifacts _and_ can read a lab report, looking over your shoulder to make sure you don't blow us up." Tony paused to look at Loki. "Is that about right?"

Loki nodded. Regally, like a bow.

"He explained it all. I can't believe there's someone here on Earth with all this knowledge!" Jane was chattering happily into Thor's bemused face. "He said he didn't want to have to lie to you again but he didn't think you'd give him a chance to explain properly. Not in the time we had. Even with the energy readings from the other crystals I've been able to study, I had no idea of the sheer density of energy of the place these things are linked to. Once he explained what almost happened when Mjolnir was forged, I knew I needed to listen to what he told me to do."

"He...enlisted your help?" Thor asked.

"Yeah, I mean he was really convincing. But creepy." She turned back towards Loki. "If you ever touch my neck again, I swear..." She trailed off as she saw what had been going on behind her.

"Wait...so he's blue now? And making out with Iron Man? I'm confused."

Thor smiled at her. "It has been a confusing week."


	22. Center of Attention

**Chapter 22: Center of Attention**

Tony and Loki were back at HQ ahead of everyone else, thanks to the wonders of teleportation. They turned on the TV while they waited for the fallout.

"Yesterday's skirmish on Liberty Island saw the Midnight Mystery fighting side by side with the Avengers. He appeared to employ some form of elemental control, using ice to immobilize the hostile aliens. And from the looks of his armor, rumors that he's unusually close to Tony Stark appear to be true. Stark is notoriously posessive of his armor technology; you may remember that two years ago, he told the US Armed Forces Committee, quote, 'the suit and I are one...You can't have it.' Perhaps this new generosity is proof that Tony Stark has a heart after all."

* * *

Thor had not let Jane out of his sight since Loki's latest act of apparent villainy. He held her on his lap now, in the chair he occupied in HQ, even as he glared at the trickster god. "Loki, why did you not simply explain?"

Loki sighed. "I've tried explaining myself. I obviously cannot trust you to follow my instructions."

The frost giant looked around the room at the Avengers. "I make no promises to any of you about honesty. Lies are far too useful a tool, and my favored weapon. You should know that I will do, and say, whatever it takes to get what I want." He chuckled, and smiled darkly. "I am Loki, after all. I have been for thousands of years. I will manipulate you without reservation. What you or the public choose to think of me is not my concern."

Tony laughed. "Are you kidding? You have just as much fun watching the newscasters gush about Midnight Mystery as I do when they talk about Iron Man." The center of attention didn't immediately shift over to Tony so he came to stand next to Loki. "You'll be able to tell he's up to something tricky the minute he puts his Áss face back on. He's got two reputations to uphold now. In fact don't even start to worry unless you see the blue guy acting creepy."

Loki crossed his arms and glared at Tony. "Must you ruin my fun?"

"Hey, this is the team. We like the team. Let's go mess with the public instead." Tony waggled his eyebrows.

"What did you have in mind?"

Tony grinned.

* * *

That night the reporters lined up on either side of the red carpet at the entrance to some charity event or other. Probably put on by Tony, meaning Pepper.

Tony stepped out of his limo. He was wearing a slate blue suit, a deep red tie and an irrepressible smile. _If they think they're excited to see me..._ He put out an arm to help his date out of the car.

Loki was wearing that deep red shirt that Tony always thought looked magnificent on him, a gold tie and a slate blue vest that was pretty obviously supposed to be part of Tony's suit. He didn't begrudge the frost giant for stealing it at all, mainly because of the way it emphasized the long lines of Loki's torso.

It was definitely a look calculated for beauty rather than formality, but after all, he was Tony Stark's date. It seemed appropriate. And the way he wore it...well, no one would doubt him if he said he was royalty from an alien planet.

Tony roused himself from his latest Loki blackout to realize that he had failed to appreciate the gasps of the crowd as they caught sight of his date. Well, he hoped Loki had appreciated the attention.

And they weren't done causing an uproar yet. Not by a long shot.

Tony wrapped an arm around the blue-skinned man's waist, and they walked inside without stopping to answer a single question.

* * *

It was a dinner to benefit victims of the earthquake. No wonder he didn't remember what it was. Pepper had organized all this since Monday? He would have to give her another raise.

At one point he got offered a microphone, and when had Tony Stark ever been able to resist a microphone?

"I'd like to take a brief moment to mention an aspect of this disaster that no one is talking about. The tragic loss of my house."

He got a laugh from the crowd then, although not as enthusiastic as he would have liked. He blamed the excellent food.

"Aww, has Malibu Barbie lost his dream house?" a smooth English-tinged voice said.

And now the room was stirring, every head turning to look at Loki as he got up from his seat and walked towards the stage.

"Hey, baby," Tony replied. "Good one; you're picking up Earth culture fast. But out of the two of us, who has improbably long legs and flowing hair?"

"Manufactured body parts and an obsession with what you wear," countered Loki.

"Lack of body heat," Tony threw back.

"Cars to coordinate with every outfit."

"Basically indestructible."

_"Beige."_

They looked at each other. Then they both began to laugh.

* * *

They drank, and then they pretended to be much drunker than they were. They kissed effusively in front of the paparazzi. When asked his name and what planet he was from, Loki replied condescendingly, "You would be unable to pronounce it."

Pepper was going to kill both of them.

It was so worth it.


	23. Crystallization

**Chapter 23: Crystallization**

One day Bruce mentioned over the magic scanner which they were fine-tuning, "I guess you're kind of like catnip for insane gods."

"What, an aphrodisiac?" Tony quipped. "That's not just insane gods, it works on everybody."

"No - well, that too, I guess. But I meant, Loki seems much more relaxed. Happier. He's got less sharp edges. He's almost _mellow._"

Tony's eyes slowly widened and he turned to look at Bruce. "_You_ are _jealous,_" he said in gleeful wonder.

Bruce laughed. "Not everything is about your prowess, Tony," he joked back.

But he really was jealous.

"Don't worry, Doc. You'll find your drug. Your Bella Swan. Your own personal brand of heroin. I believe in love!" he declared, singsong, then, humming to himself, went back to adjusting the filaments.

"How can lovestruck Tony be even more annoying than regular Tony?" Bruce groused, but he couldn't help smiling too.

* * *

The team had reached an unofficial consensus that during battle, Loki was to be referred to as "Mystery," "M&M" or just "M." Hawkeye had come up with the nickname "Blue M&M," because, as Clint explained it, "he's the creepy new addition to the established package. Seriously, do you know how long it took me to get used to eating the blue ones?"

Tony was quick to reply, "All right then, who's light brown? We need to chuck him off the team."

This started a discussion over who was what color, and to his chagrin, Hawkeye got stuck with light brown. Hulk was green, of course, and Tony claimed red before anyone else could. Widow was assigned dark brown with little argument. That left Cap and Thor to squabble over who got to be yellow and who was left with orange. Thor got yellow.

Cap sighed. "I remember when M&Ms only came in light brown."

"You want tan out of nostalgia?" Hawk asked.

"Only if you'd rather be orange."

Then Jarvis informed them that some people in costumes were trying to break into one of Stark's factories.

"Well, that's my cue to suit up," said Tony. "Anyone care to join me in a little avenging?"

Everyone did, of course.

* * *

When they got there, they saw that two men, one with a variety of boomerangs and one with prehensile metal coils extending from his arms, were attempting to steal some of Stark's equipment. It was hard to take them seriously.

"Where did he get all that vibranium?" Tony drooled as he looked at the Constrictor's coils.

Hawkeye was now in a walking cast, but he still gave a daunted look at the available buildings surrounding the fight.

Loki gave Clint a look, and said, "Need a lift, Vethrfolnir?"

Thor, beside them, burst into laughter.

Clint said, "Hey, what'd you call me?" But he didn't even flinch when Loki took ahold of his arm to teleport him up to the highest rooftop. And it really was the fastest way yet to get into position, much less troublesome than being dragged through the air by Tony or Thor. Clint thought he could probably get used to it.

When asked about the comment later, Thor explained, "Vethrfolnir is a hawk who rides around on an eagle."

Clint had to admit that was pretty apt.

The battle had ended fairly quickly, seeing as that idiot Hammer had provided these two "supervillains" with their equipment. The Constrictor and Boomerang were in SHIELD custody now, talking all about it.

"That was hardly worth our time," Thor complained.

"At least I got to shoot something," said Clint, who had been having a lot of fun intercepting and detonating exploding boomerangs. "Being on the sick list has been boring me to death."

Everyone was relaxing in Loki's presence. The frost giant smiled, only a bit maliciously. If the Avengers were getting bored, well then, as a part of the team, he would have to do something about that.

He caught Tony's eye, and the glint he found there spoke volumes.


	24. Like A God

**Chapter 24: Like a God**

"What is this to you?" Loki asked as they lay together, propped against Tony's headboard.

"I haven't had this much fun since..." Tony paused and thought. "I've never had this much fun."

"And is that sufficient?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"For how much longer would you like to have it?"

There was a silence and Tony didn't want to allow it to lengthen.

"So I guess you noticed how I deftly avoided the whole 'distant future' subject back there on the plane."

"Yes," said Loki simply. There was something terribly, painfully _accepting_ in those deep red eyes, and Tony recognized it, and he hated it in Loki as much as he clung to it in himself.

Howard Stark had treated him like one of his machines, always wanting perfection, consistency, predictability. Then he'd gone and died, and Obie had done everything in his power to keep Tony that damaged, oblivious kid his father had created.

Changing himself, reshaping himself, being adaptable and independent and resilient; these were the things that were within his power, that made him feel powerful. Not his genius, or his money, or even his armor. The ability to carry on after anything; to take whatever was in front of him and create a life that he could live.

A future that could be relied on...it was too much to think about, because he knew the pain he would feel if he allowed himself to build on it and then it got snatched away.

"Talking about the future? Really not my thing. I'm very much about the now."

He avoided the red eyes and instead he played with Loki's ear, tugging on the lobe playfully, the back of his mind cataloguing comparative skin elasticity and noting the speed at which the isolated piece of blue tissue warmed under his touch.

He sat there for a little while longer, until that hatred for the acceptance in Loki's eyes became more than the...he supposed the word was _fear_...of letting his mind go where it hadn't for a long time.

"Look, I don't need anything other than you. That's not it. If I woke up here, twenty years from now, and you were there, God I can't do this. I can't let myself think about that." Tony buried his face in the pillows.

Then something occurred to him and he rolled back to look up at Loki's face again.

"I don't do well with time. Time and I aren't exactly best buds. Especially since this." Tony tapped his reactor. "I have to do everything now in case I never get a chance to do anything again. If there's one thing I am, it's mortal. But you, Springbok, you've got literally all the time in the world. And you're a god. I guess you can spend it however you want. My life must seem like the blink of an eye to you, so what does it matter whether it's a month or half a century? You'll forget it just the same."

"Do you truly believe that?"

"I don't know, I've never lived a thousand years then tried to remember something. I forget what day of the week it is and the last time I ate."

"Will you ever forget Yinsen?"

Loki had asked about that name after Tony had called it during his nightmares.

"...No," said Tony. "Never. But..."

The god interrupted then, pulling Tony's face up towards his own and capturing Tony's brown eyes with those inescapable red ones. "You are a beautiful storm of truth and lies. Fascinating in their own right, but once I rode through them it was as if you offered yourself up like a sacrifice to me. Showed me your heart and mind without hesitation. I don't ever remember _not being feared._ That changed me forever. Even if I lose myself again, I won't lose what you gave me. A memory of finding peace in the eye of the storm."

Then Tony could see what the red eyes had been hiding with that terribly blank, empty calm. A devastatingly powerful hope. And hope is a destructive force, Tony knows this. It moves into your mind and starts rearranging all your shit until it finds a way to get you what you want, or destroys your mind in the process. Hope got him out of that cave, and left his mind a blasted lanscape of ruined habits, overturned assumptions, and this hyperawareness of his own impermanence.

Hope had turned him into Iron Man.

Tony knew what this god was capable of with a beast of an emotion like that running free in his mind. It freaked him right out, to be honest. Here was Tony Stark, possibly the only thing standing in between an insane god and a doomed planet.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time.

Tony had stood in front of this man without his armor and talked (threatened? Stalled? Bluffed?) his way through the few minutes he needed. No, he hadn't been afraid. He was pretty sure he was going to die, though. So he thought, _might as well make the best of this. Here's a puzzle. Can I solve it before time runs out?_ And Tony had smiled, and he'd played the game for the sheer pleasure of it.

He had a hell of a lot less armor on now. It was no longer an option to confuse Loki with a storm of words. But it was still the same basic choice. What did he most want to do with the time he had?

He kept his eyes on those red ones, because he wanted to spend as much time as possible looking at them. "Forget losing or keeping. Forget time. Time's a jerk anyway. This is all you need to know. If I had the choice, every day, starting now, I'd wake up and see you."

The red eyes turned bright at that.

"Then all I can do is offer you that choice every day, starting now. And maybe give you less to fear from the future."

Loki held out his blue hand, and in it was a golden apple.

"You already think of yourself as a god. We might as well make it official."

"What is that?"

"You don't like to think about the future. So don't think. Just eat this."

Tony hesitated. He didn't understand how it worked. On the other hand, he always did like trying new foods.

"Trust me," said Loki with a twisted smile. "I have a plan."

And how could Tony say no to that?

He took the apple.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

So that was my first slash fic ever. Normally it's not something that appeals to me. There's just something about Tony and Loki that seems right to me.

My author's notes got way too long so I'll continue them over on my blog, which is at qwanderer dot wordpress et cetera. I'll post a proper link in my profile as well.

Quick note, golden apples: The apples of Idunn, the goddess of youth and rejuvenation.

Neko: Yeah, I imagine blue!Loki to be the color of Mystique, but with a bit less texture. Just a few extra lines rather than all those scales.


End file.
